Margaret Atwood

[MummBRaaarrrTheEverLeaking]

twitter.com/MargaretAtwood/status/1450429768067846145?t=8q-A8MlvzZsx6pt4Vu1_LA&s=19

Has retweeted an article from the Toronto Star "why can't we say woman anymore" and bloody hell are they coming for the latest witch burning in the comments!

Ranging from disappointment to the usual sweary abuse. I thought oh how long till the capitulation begins, turns out I didn't have to wait long!

She's following it up with retweets about 'we can say people when it's accurate and inclusive' and then defending the article because the writer isn't "a terf"???

Not really sure what she's trying to achieve here, anyone?

[quote WarriorN]The author of the opinion piece she RT has been asked to review it to include violence against trans / non binary stats, after umpteen complaints.

They've said no, but it's still nuts.

twitter.com/jessicavt76/status/1452738089672220690?s=21[/quote]
I admire Jessica Triff for this stance as it's plain there is a lot of pressure. (This is the author that some commenters were alleging didn't exist and was a sock for Atwood through their sleuthing on iwl and wouldn't full retract this speculation even when people on their own thread were managing to find Google entries for Triff that they'd missed?)

Even if the publisher changes it without Triff's consent, I applaud anyone who is defending the principle of the published piece in the absence of errors.

Yes, despite my profound pessimism about so many aspects of contemporary ideology and politics, I search for the rubies among the rubble.

@ArabellaScott

Would it be possible, do you think, that Atwood has not read JK Rowling's essay, nor anything about Maya's case? Really?

If you're asking if Atwood has read the primary sources for both JKR and Maya, I would think that it's highly probable that she hasn't.

If you're asking if she's read secondary sources or interpretations of either or both, then that's more likely.

I think, on balance, Atwood is taking her pre-digested opinions and thought-terminating clichés from others to whom she has outsourced her opinions on the practice of this ideology. This is how the community that she is organises itself.

I think you're right, Embarrassing. It only just occurred to me the other day, when she said she'd have to look up 'gc'.

It's astonishing to me that someone would come out all guns blazing on a contentious issue ... having only read/researched one side of it. It's just bizarre. Surely to fuck you'd read at least one or two things to try and get a feel for what you were arguing against? No?!

you'd read at least one or two things to try and get a feel for what you were arguing against? No?!

You and I would as would many people who post on FWR. Look how many visitors attempt to 'set us straight' on something or assert that we will never have heard of something to which they read a glancing reference 5 minutes before. Or those whose innate superiority tells them that their knowledge is equivalent to that of women who've been in and around this for years.

Helen Joyce searched high and low for codified arguments that she could critique and use as a basis for her book. She couldn't find arguments or science and nobody could signpost her even to a place on the map that said, 'Here be dragons' rather than 'Here be the endless oceans of emotion to distract you from the cavernous abyss where you'd hope to see the stores of knowledge'.

I think every social psychologist who has ever written about closed communities, prisoners of war, and thought reform would say that exploration and discussion is not encouraged within these groups and is actively discouraged as a breach of faith and failure of collusion and compliance. For all her power and status, Atwood is a member of one of these communities.

Not on twitter and this all moved really fast, just a recap... Following the retweet of the Star/"Woman" article (with a terfy caveat) she took something like 48 hours to capitulate and posted an anti JKR and Maya video?

Obviously this is a condensed recap but just so I can keep up...!

I admire Jessica Triff for this stance as it's plain there is a lot of pressure.

People like Triff, or Debbie Hayton, are able to act as really effective coolers, I think. They can't be accused of not believing in trans people's existence, or knowing nothing of their experience. They may be accused of being anti-trans but it tends to fall flat for most normal people. And they are clear writers who can make a rational argument for what they think.

Someone like Atwood is likely to get more from someone like that than she would from some gc feminist writer who she probably thinks is a fascist or religious conservative, or both.

I think every social psychologist who has ever written about closed communities, prisoners of war, and thought reform would say that exploration and discussion is not encouraged within these groups and is actively discouraged as a breach of faith and failure of collusion and compliance.

This is chilling and yet also exactly what I see.

What concerns me the most is that I'm seeing this infect fb teaching groups. Other groups too but teachers need to be able to discuss not silence. And presumably, again from what I've seen on edutwitter, teaching courses.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

you'd read at least one or two things to try and get a feel for what you were arguing against? No?!

You and I would as would many people who post on FWR. Look how many visitors attempt to 'set us straight' on something or assert that we will never have heard of something to which they read a glancing reference 5 minutes before. Or those whose innate superiority tells them that their knowledge is equivalent to that of women who've been in and around this for years.

Helen Joyce searched high and low for codified arguments that she could critique and use as a basis for her book. She couldn't find arguments or science and nobody could signpost her even to a place on the map that said, 'Here be dragons' rather than 'Here be the endless oceans of emotion to distract you from the cavernous abyss where you'd hope to see the stores of knowledge'.

I think every social psychologist who has ever written about closed communities, prisoners of war, and thought reform would say that exploration and discussion is not encouraged within these groups and is actively discouraged as a breach of faith and failure of collusion and compliance. For all her power and status, Atwood is a member of one of these communities.

This whole post is excellent.

Thanks Embarrassing. Sounds plausible if quite depressing and frightening.

I recall seeking out the voices of gc transwomen way back when - Miranda Yardley, Kristina Harrison, Fionne Orlander among others. As well as reading views and accounts of pro gender views.

I had assumed anyone with an interest would have done similar before broadcasting opinion to 2m people on Twitter.

Well quite.

I get the feeling that the narratives in the US/ Canada are harder to unpick.

Do they as a whole rely more on the news channels? Which are biased? I seem to remember someone saying that the newspapers here are akin to the news channels there, ie, a wide range of biases, whereas due to the bbc and requirement for balance, the tv news here is more moderate and tends to show wider range of opposing views.

It means therefore that we have centrist tv shows comparing newspaper headlines which have different takes on things which helps demonstrate how biases work.

Makes me wonder if they then lack seeing that play out weekly. (Just musing.)

If you're asking if Atwood has read the primary sources for both JKR and Maya, I would think that it's highly probable that she hasn't.

If you're asking if she's read secondary sources or interpretations of either or both, then that's more likely.

This is the biggest problem really, GC feminists can spend hours writing and rewriting thoughtful, deeply researched and open pieces explaining our position, and while the may get applauded by other GC feminists, the people you really want to be reading them absolutely won't.

Instead someone else will write another piece totally misrepresenting what was written, cherry picking sentences out of context to make them seem unreasonable, and then they'll pitch their piece as "I read it so you don't have to give this awful bigot your clicks and free advertising". And then their piece is the one that gets cited if anyone asks what the original piece says. And their misrepresentation becomes gospel. And anyone suggesting that it might be an idea to read the actual original is seen as supporting bigots and helping them earn money through clicks.

Can someone please confirm my recap upthread? Is this what has happened, in a nutshell?

Tues 19th - posts article asking why we can't use the word 'woman'

Sun 24th - posts misrepresentations about JKR/Maya

5 days, LittleWing. In between those dates, of course, were the rape & death threats and the doxxing.

I hate, hate hate, that I don't even find the threats remotely surprising anymore. What has happened to our society?

I get the feeling that the narratives in the US/ Canada are harder to unpick.

Re: Canada I wonder if the size and population distribution in the U.K. makes it easier for organisations like Woman’s place to visibly organise and gather support?

The US obviously has a completely different structure and political landscape, and many are only vaguely aware of politics in other countries, so of course a lesbian trade unionist from London must be controlled by US Republicans.

Where are monitors/admins of social media based, are they all in the US, employees of FB/Twitter etc? Or are there some in the UK? So much is filtered through social media, I wonder how much the effect changes between countries and cultures.

5 days, LittleWing. In between those dates, of course, were the rape & death threats and the doxxing.

And possibly the calls from her agent/publicist/publisher about how trans AND NON BINARY EMPLOYEES AND MOST IMPORTANTLY THEIR ALLIES, felt unsafe because of her tweet.

Yes @merrymouse American TRAs see the UK as an awful reactionary hellhole where lgbt ppl are not safe to walk the streets. Which is extraordinary to anyone who has spent time in both countries. But this is part of the problem ; few Americans need or want to travel. And the Internet seems to just reinforce prejudice.

Thanks @ArabellaScott and @merrymouse

So she's been silenced? Or the initial retweet was a "mistake"? What a way to dip your toe in...

Margaret Atwood has done this before. It's not her first toe-dipping.

You'll be able to check a week from now and she'll still be getting f-you tweets. No one reads beyond the headline these days, and the headline for her now is that she is cancelled.
She could pull it back by starting a trans-only literary award, or doing some high-profile trans promotion but a significant number of TRA+ will have binned her now.
Even a neutral tweet will likely get hate replies.

Finding people to hate is part of the enjoyment of feeling righteous. The more prominent the person being cancelled, the greater the feeling of self satisfaction.

@LittleWingSoul

Thanks *@ArabellaScott and @merrymouse*

So she's been silenced? Or the initial retweet was a "mistake"? What a way to dip your toe in...

No, but you'd definitely need to read the thread to see different perspectives evolve.

Atwood tweeted the 1st piece and claimed it couldn't be problematic because it wasn't written by a TERF.

She kept emphasising the piece wasn't by a TERF.

To shore up her own position, Atwood posted on opinion piece by Jessica Triff (a TW) assuming that couldn't be problematic.

Atwood was (it seems) startled that the abuse towards her from TRAs continued. Under some degree of coercion (and possibly distress) from all this, to prove her credentials, she RT'd a Sciam piece for the 'science' to demonstrate she's onside with TRAs (the article was about DSDs and not her interpretation of it which is that 'sex is a spectrum') and also a popular video that criticised/abused/made erroneous claims about JKR and Maya.

This isn't Atwood dipping in her toe - she's been here before when she not only failed to support JKR but, iirc, contributed to the pile-on.

@merrymouse

I get the feeling that the narratives in the US/ Canada are harder to unpick.

Re: Canada I wonder if the size and population distribution in the U.K. makes it easier for organisations like Woman’s place to visibly organise and gather support?

The US obviously has a completely different structure and political landscape, and many are only vaguely aware of politics in other countries, so of course a lesbian trade unionist from London must be controlled by US Republicans.

Yes very much this too.

I feel US and to a point Canada is used to operating in echo chambers anyway through class race and political structures, plus sheer size of the country.

@merrymouse

I get the feeling that the narratives in the US/ Canada are harder to unpick.

Re: Canada I wonder if the size and population distribution in the U.K. makes it easier for organisations like Woman’s place to visibly organise and gather support?

The US obviously has a completely different structure and political landscape, and many are only vaguely aware of politics in other countries, so of course a lesbian trade unionist from London must be controlled by US Republicans.

Helen Joyce makes that point in her book. She believes that the fact that the population in the UK is so clustered together makes it easier for people from different areas to congregate, whereas in Canada and the USA, people would have to travel far further to congregate.

And this:
"She couldn't find arguments or science and nobody could signpost her even to a place on the map that said, 'Here be dragons' rather than 'Here be the endless oceans of emotion to distract you from the cavernous abyss where you'd hope to see the stores of knowledge'."
is an absolutely perfect way of expressing the situation.

If any of you haven't read her book yet, I heartily recommend it - it's as thoroughly researched as it could be (given the above) and is a good account of how things have played out over the last several years. VERY easy to read - unlike e.g. JB's jargon-filled rant in the Guardian recently, which I gave up on after about 3 sentences (and hopefully so did many other people - it wouldn't have been beneficial to them to try to continue anyway)

"This isn't Atwood dipping in her toe - she's been here before when she not only failed to support JKR but, iirc, contributed to the pile-on."

Yep. She marked her card for me back then, by being against JKR. Can't remember if it was an open letter against JKR in specific, or an open letter in support of the TRAs, but I remember being bitterly disappointed in her then. More so now.

Any of the transsexuals or moderate transwomen/transmen out there who believe that they are still the biological sex they started out as, otherwise they wouldn't have been feeling the need to transition (well duh!) are reviled by the TRAs and called transmedicalists or truscum. Some of you will already know this, of course, but any newcomers to this mess may not have heard the terms.